User:MrBill3/sb4

sb4 is for demonstration of setting up references with notes, citations and bibliography. Please note all references and statistics are fictional and this expresses the views of this editor only.

Citation only
Some items are referenced with only a citation. In some instances a long article may be cited several times, possibly specifying specific pages. Usually for a journal article the whole article is cited. Sometimes the page is specified.

Notes with citation
Sometimes an explanatory note is used. Sometimes they may be useful. "There has been some controversy on the subject.

Discussion
To make these forms of citation work the parameter "ref=harv" must be added to the original citation or the citation in the bibliography. There are a number of ways to use the "ref=harv" parameter. When using the "harvp" template inside ref brackets a period must be placed to maintain consistency in the reference section. Sometimes authors write more than one book or article on the topic in the same year. A lower case letter added to the year can be used to distinguish the two books or articles. Some articles go so far as to use more than one notes section. This is rare. While this may be useful in distinguishing clearly distinct sets of notes it is controversial. Most WP editors do not find this amount of complexity valuable. This may add to the large number of errors in references on WP. A balance between providing complete and detailed reference information and maintaining consistency and readability is important. It is also important to avoid overcite. While adequate inline citations and detailed enough references are required for verification, the value of extensive references and notes is questionable. Complete and well organized references are useful to readers who are interested in critically evaluating the topic and the WP article. Uniformity in references increases readability. References on WP can be complex. Some find them very confusing.

Summary
References are required for verification. Important items not mentioned include the isbn for books, doi for journal articles and url's (possibly archived) for references on the web. For references that lack these tools for access it is necessary to include adequate detail to allow an editor or reader to find the reference. Full name of author and publication, full title and date should be included. Many references used on WP are not easily accessed.

List defined references
List defined references separate the references from the text.